{"id":885,"date":"2021-07-23T11:09:44","date_gmt":"2021-07-23T15:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=885"},"modified":"2021-07-23T11:09:44","modified_gmt":"2021-07-23T15:09:44","slug":"being-happy-being-blessed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/23\/being-happy-being-blessed\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Happy, Being Blessed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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(c) Charles M. Schulz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Throughout July we\u2019re taking an in-depth look at Proverbs, the Bible\u2019s one-of-a-kind book about our never-ending need for wisdom.<\/em>

Charles M. Schulz never hid the fact that his most famous cartoon creation was really a depiction of himself.

Charlie Brown is a boy with a big ego (as represented by his huge head) who experiences life as incurably disappointing and confusing. 

Schulz\u2019s life, like Charlie\u2019s, was marked by a low grade fever of sadness.  \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to be happy,\u201d he told his wife.  And that was on their honeymoon.  Argh. <\/em>

A year before his death in 2000 he told an interviewer:  \u201cI would love to be un-anxious, [but] I don\u2019t know how to go about doing it\u2026 I have this awful feeling of impending doom.\u201d  He told another writer that on most days, \u201cI wake up to a funeral atmosphere.\u201d  Good grief.<\/em>

When A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/em> won an Emmy for best TV feature in 1965, Schulz was genuinely shocked to hear his name called.  His acceptance speech was famously brief:  \u201cCharlie Brown isn\u2019t used to winning.  So, we thank you.\u201d

Before Peanuts<\/em> debuted in 1950, America\u2019s comic artists had typically focused on one-panel gags and broad jokes.

Schulz\u2019s cast of characters, which featured a collection of children and a highly precocious beagle (and a notable absence of grown-ups) was different.  They experienced life primarily in four-panel mini-dramas \u2013 17,897 altogether over a period of nearly 50 years.  They wrestled with friendship, hope, sadness, God, the meaning of existence, and life\u2019s toughest problems.

What\u2019s significant is that they never really resolved any of them.

Without even trying to do so, Schulz became the world\u2019s first philosopher cartoonist. 

It\u2019s ironic that someone who searched so long and hard (and unsuccessfully) for happiness succeeded in sparking so much happiness in others.  In 1963 Schulz released history\u2019s first free-standing compilation of comic strips, a volume that tried to fill in the blank: \u201cHappiness is\u2026\u201d  It was the \u201cphrase-launcher of the times,\u201d according to author David Michealis in Schulz and Peanuts. <\/em>

The book proclaimed that \u201chappiness is a warm puppy.\u201d  High-minded critics scoffed.  \u201cHappiness isn\u2019t a warm puppy!\u201d scowled Sir William Hawthorne of Cambridge, who was quite convinced that Truth could not be found in a comic strip.

Schulz struck back, not without a little anger: \u201cI will defend to my dying day the statement that happiness is a warm puppy.  I defy the critic to give me a better definition of what happiness is.  It may take him a 12-volume set of books to do it, but in one sentence let him try to tell me better what is more happy than a little kid putting his arms around a warm puppy.  If that isn\u2019t happiness, I don\u2019t what is.\u201d

So what is<\/u><\/em> the definition of happiness? 

Maybe it\u2019s hidden in plain sight. 

Happiness comes from the same root that gives us the word \u201chappen.\u201d  Happiness depends on what is happening, or not happening, at a given moment.   Happiness may come down to something as simple as whether or not you feel like a blockhead, whether someone snatched the football away just when you were about to kick it, or whether there is a warm puppy on your lap.  Or whether that puppy seems intent on ruining your carpets.

Proverbs, like most of the books that make up the Old and New Testaments, acknowledges that the vast majority of the world\u2019s citizens, on any given day, are searching for happiness.  But God offers something fundamentally different.  And profoundly better.  God offers the gift of being blessed<\/em>.

Blessing is the God-provided certainty that all is well \u2013 an assurance that is strangely and wonderfully independent of happiness.

For instance, you can be happy but not blessed.  That may seem like an acceptable way to live.  But such happiness is notoriously fragile \u2013 a condition that, once lost, can only be recovered by the next vacation, the next financial windfall, or the next drink.  Maybe<\/em>. 

On the other hand, you can be blessed but not happy.  Perhaps the feeling of happiness simply eludes you right now.  But if you know that you are blessed \u2013 if you know that God favors you with his presence, his grace, and his unchanging love \u2013 then nothing can rob you of something even better than happiness.  That would be joy.  And it just so happens that the joy of being blessed is what human hearts hunger for more than anything else. 

Proverbs 10:22 qualifies as one of the Bible\u2019s most underrated verses.  It\u2019s profound but overlooked.  Here\u2019s how it reads in three different English renderings:

\u201cIt is the Lord\u2019s blessing that makes you wealthy.  Hard work can make you no richer\u201d (Good News Translation<\/em>).  \u201cThe Lord\u2019s blessing is our greatest wealth.  All our work adds nothing to it!\u201d (The Living Bible<\/em>).  \u201cGod\u2019s blessing makes life rich; nothing we do can improve on God\u201d (The Message<\/em>). 

Will meeting the love of your life make you happy?  Yes.  But only for a while.  Will winning the Lottery make all your dreams come true?  No.  Maybe a few of your fantasies.  But your deepest dreams \u2013 the ones that God planted \u2013 will almost certainly recede farther from your reach. 

Happiness is\u2026knowing in our heart of hearts that by abandoning ourselves to God we are genuinely blessed. 

No matter what happens<\/em>.
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Throughout July we\u2019re taking an in-depth look at Proverbs, the Bible\u2019s one-of-a-kind book about our never-ending need for wisdom. Charles M. Schulz never hid the fact that his most famous cartoon creation was really a depiction of himself. Charlie Brown is a boy with a big ego (as represented by his huge head) who experiences life as incurably disappointing and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[281,251,123],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blessing","tag-happiness","tag-proverbs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":887,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions\/887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}